Commentator Paid to Promote Bush Agenda Agrees to a Settlement

Published: October 23, 2006

The conservative commentator Armstrong Williams has reached a settlement with prosecutors regarding payments he received from the Education Department to promote President Bush's agenda.

Under the settlement, Mr. Williams admits no wrongdoing but will have to pay $34,000 that prosecutors determined he had been overpaid. The deal was reached last week by Mr. Williams, the Education Department and one of its subcontractors, Ketchum Communications. The settlement was first reported by The Washington Times and by USA Today on its Web site.

''The department is happy to see this matter come to a close,'' Katherine McLane, a spokeswoman for Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, said Sunday. ''One of the first steps Secretary Spellings took when she came to office is to establish guidelines to prevent future occurrences of this type of situation.''

There was no immediate response to a message left at Mr. Williams's office on Sunday.

The settlement brings to a close a yearlong investigation that began after news reports that the Education Department had contracted with several radio, television and print commentators to promote the No Child Left Behind Act.

Lawmakers criticized the contracts as an improper use of taxpayer dollars. Congressional auditors concluded that the department had engaged in illegal ''covert propaganda'' by hiring Mr. Williams without requiring him to disclose that he had been paid.

In the settlement, the Justice Department examined whether Mr. Williams had performed the work promised in his $240,000 contract, signed in 2003 and cited in his reports to the Education Department.

Prosecutors determined he had been overpaid by $34,000. Their review did not examine whether he had improperly promoted the Bush administration's agenda.